Does measurements really matter?

An excellent video. Harley does a great job discussing the place of measurements in recording, design, and playback. I am a trained scientist and worked as a electro / mechanical design engineer. I quickly realized principles and specs would get you in the ball park… but quickly needed to be abandoned and experiment with materials to get the preferred outcome. Just like I have heard high end audio designers say… these resisters sound like this, these capacitors sound warmer…etc… and they go on to craft a natural realistic sound and leave the specs take care of themselves. I guess, that was one of the first lessons I learned after buying some amp with incredible peak watts per channel and sounded terrible. A real basic principle of high audio… glance at the specs…. Then listen, listen, listen.

If you're going to listen to single driver slim tall boxes they don't matter at all. 

Watch Danny Richie's GR Research You Tube videos to see what and how he measures loudspeakers. Very similar to what John Atkinson does.

@ghdprentice 

. A real basic principle of high audio… glance at the specs…. Then listen, listen, listen.

Excellent summation. 

Charles 

Teo_Audio- WOW, that was a GREAT post.  One of the best I've ever read.  In such a small word count you explain the issue of hearing vs measurement in a nice nutshell.  I love the simplicity of your description: an "incomplete science".  

I have been demoing high end audio since 1975.  I've heard just about every weird anomaly and made about every dumb error you could make in system set up or design.  First consumer, then live sound reinforcement, now pro level recording studios.  I have heard very smart people say very dumb things, such as the composer who can write a movie score but insists his speakers are buzzing and defective when it's something in his room; like the home audiophile who is convinced his speakers suck when it's 100% room problems; like the producer who thinks he makes better decisions at 120dB SPL or the mixer who cannot hear the obvious power compression in his old passives after working all day.   I've heard great speakers sound absolutely awful in one room, brilliant in another room.  As you say, the mind plays tricks and audio/acoustics is not a simple black and white science.     

Brad